Accelerating AI capabilities will enable automation of some tasks that have long required human labor. These transformations will open up new opportunities for individuals, the economy, and society, but they will also disrupt the current livelihoods of millions of Americans. The new report examines the expected impact of AI-driven automation on the economy, and describes broad strategies that could increase the benefits of AI and mitigate its costs.

AI-driven automation will transform the economy over the coming years and decades. The challenge for policymakers will be to update, strengthen, and adapt policies to respond to the economic effects of AI.

Although it is difficult to predict these economic effects precisely, the report suggests that policymakers should prepare for five primary economic effects:

Positive contributions to aggregate productivity growth;

Changes in the skills demanded by the job market, including greater demand for higher-level technical skills;

Churning of the job market as some jobs disappear while others are created; and

The loss of jobs for some workers in the short-run, and possibly longer depending on policy responses.

In the cases where it is possible to direct mitigations to particularly affected places and sectors, those approaches should be pursued. But more generally, the report suggests three broad strategies for addressing the impacts of AI-driven automation across the whole U.S. economy:

Invest in and develop AI for its many benefits;

Educate and train Americans for jobs of the future; and

Aid workers in the transition and empower workers to ensure broadly shared growth.